You could say that the Roman Empire was, in that era, barbaric. But at the same time — and you could also say this is most incongruous — brimming with intellectualism. The Romans were, despite their apparent bloodthirstiness, an enlightened people. And in my book, enlightened also means tolerant.

Today, we're living in yet another incongruity: Despite so many rapid global advances in technology, intellectualism has been herded into only a few small pens around the world. And outside those pens — intolerance. At least that's my POV.

Having said that, I will from now on refer to km as "fr", which means Free Range. Because he's obviously not in one of those pens.

Better a weirdo than a bitter, homophobic bigot like your own sad self. And I'm not so sure I'm the obsessive one here. To be obsessed means to have hang-ups. And the grommets on your waistcoat are hard to miss.

However, if you want to define my calling you out whenever you need calling out "obsessive", I'll wear the title with a big sh!t-eating grin. Happy now, fr?

"Grommets on the waistcoat... " nice one. That's an image I can hang my hat on.

One would hope that intellectualism breeds tolerance but there's just as much evidence that intellectuals are as much subject to manipulation by ruling elites as any other class. In our times, we have cherry-picked faux-intellectuals stepping up to the plate to protect certain ingrained religious power systems. Hence the "intelligent design" spokespeople and their repeated attempt to stymie scientific thought with pretzel logic. Some pretty convoluted machinations there. Mind you, some contemporary trends in physics seems pretty daunting too - string theory, dark matter, quantum mechanics, etc.

I will sooner agree that advancements in science and technology do not at all equate with advancements in enlightened thinking. Most of the time, we are hastening to play catch-up with the broader and deeper implications of the new tools we have so brilliantly devised.

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